


You Know All My Secrets

by buttercups3



Series: War Stories [2]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Gen, LJ 60 prompts in 60 days, Prompt: content, fireside bonding, fluffy feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 13:29:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttercups3/pseuds/buttercups3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During some undisclosed mission, Miles, Bass, and Charlie team up. War wounds present and past lead to fireside bonding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Know All My Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> Oh and Billy’s tattoos are pretty much Miles' tattoos, plus the elusive M (because clearly Miles shook off that kid in the Children's Crusade to hide his forearm). Whatever Kripke. Your decisions about your characters suck, and mine are better! ;)

The candle glow lights her tanned skin to honey-gold. She looks so damn young that something aches in Miles. He remembers fighting when he was around her age – the illusions of invincibility, the impossible agility of youth. You commanded your body to the minutest atom, and so who could possibly harm you? Even the minor wounds he and Bass had wracked up as Marines – him a sprained knee, Bass a broken arm, grazes, cuts, nicks, then even a bullet or two…none of it meant anything except glory, anxious looks from Gail and the girls, mild irritation from Ben, that inexplicable lip curl from Rachel, until Miles broke from the inside, and by then he was nearly twenty-eight. His smooth-skinned days were already fading from too many sunburns and too much corrosion from the sand.

Hard to believe he’s found himself here by a campfire with the two people who have meant more to his shriveled soul than he ever could have predicted: Bass and Charlie. He was pissed they’d somehow managed to team up without him, but he couldn’t stay angry. Hell, it was like his left and right brain coming together to finally form one complete intelligence. They almost _look_ alike – their blonde hair, penetrating blue eyes. It seemed for everyone else in the world, there was one romantic love – the soul mate who helped your life make sense. You fucked them, married them, spawned with them. That part of Miles’ life had never added up (not even close) – but his best friend? His niece? They turned out to be the goddammed loves of his life. Can you believe that shit? 

“Miles, let me see the cut on your back.” Bass is tired of waiting for Miles to attend to his wound, doesn’t see what could be delaying him. Miles is visibly seeping scarlet through his shirt. He took a nasty hack to the scapula in their evening skirmish with some guerrillas. (Who knows where these guys even come from or what they want. Probably just shredding the world because it’s fun – like in the early days, before the Militia.) Miles is half collapsed on himself, sitting cross-legged, drinking from his canteen like he hasn’t even heard Bass.

Yeah, maybe Bass has no right to tell Miles anything, after all he’s done, but he’s genuinely trying to help now. He glances at Charlotte to see if she can prod her uncle to motion. They lock eyes for a moment, but hell if Bass can tell what she’s thinking. As far as he knows, she might go feral again at any moment and try to kill him. 

“He’s right, Miles. You’re bleeding,” is what she says, though, hands on hips.

“I’m fine.”

“Fine, huh? Like Nora was fine when she got stabbed, and we had to take her to that heroine-prostitute plantation where she got a blood transfusion, and we all almost died? That kind of fine?”

Miles flicks his black eyes at her and purses his lips defiantly.

Intrigued by this tale, Bass inquiries, “You went where? Hell, if infected stab wounds lead to drugs and whores, maybe we shouldn’t clean you up.”

Charlie shoots him the filthiest glare, and he shrugs, “Kidding, Charlotte. Now take off your shirt, you big prude,” he turns to Miles.

Miles grumbles and obeys, lifting his shirt with both hands over his head, catching it on his nose, and giving it a final furious yank.

Charlie’s never seen her uncle without a long-sleeve on, and it’s obvious now that there are a hundred reasons why. His tattoos, for instance – one of a naked woman on his upper arm, a tangle of others on the opposing side she can’t quite make out in the dim light and then the familiar M on his forearm – the same one she’s branded with. She swallows; Miles is clearly trying not to look at her. He’s lean and wiry, and he’s got a lot more chest hair than any of the men she’s seen half naked. She finds herself fascinated with his body and then guilty. It’s not like _that_ – it’s just, well he’s almost been something of a superhero to her. Not that he’s perfect, but it does appear he can’t be beat in battle. It’s like she’s finally seeing the inside of a clock that has been keeping time magnificently for years without a single wind.

“Charlotte, I need you to hold a light, so I can clean this,” Bass beckons without looking at her. His eyes are glued to the wound. “Does it hurt when I do this?” He jabs a finger at it.

“Ow! Cock wand,” Miles mutters under his breath.

Bass is chuckling with sadistic glee. “Sorry, bro. Couldn’t help it. It looks like shit, but I’ve plumb left my sewing kit at home, so I’m just going to douse it in alcohol ten times a day until-”

“I kill you with my swords-”

“That, or you heal up nice and pretty.” He reaches around to lightly slap Miles’ cheek, while Miles tries to pull away. “Charlotte?” 

“Monroe, for God’s sakes. Call me Charlie,” Charlie objects, having lit a candle and fallen to her haunches on the other side of Miles’ back. “Oof!” she plops all the way onto her butt, and then her mouth falls open: “Holy shit!” She covers her mouth with a hand, surprised at her own profanity. But it’s not the cut – sword gashes she’s seen by the dozen at this point. Sure, it’s deep, but Miles has been in worse shape after a fight. No, it’s the colony of welts all over his back – like ancient anthills or, “Whip marks?”

Miles tries to angle away, but Bass holds his friend's shoulder in place. “Don’t move; I’m just about to get to the good part.” With that Bass begins working the wound carefully with a doused rag.

Miles goes in a moment from humiliation to agony, biting his lip so as not to make a sound. It’s more important with these two than with anyone that he doesn’t show weakness. Come to think of it, he’s not sure why. 

Despite Bass acting like a little shit a moment ago, Miles senses he’s sorry for the pain. He’s being as gentle as possible and has left his free hand on Miles’ shoulder to steady him, to provide strength. Bass whistles while he works – part of his tough-guy act in front of Charlie – but the hand says, _You can do this, Miles. Just another minute._

Suddenly Miles feels a second hand lower on his back – a warm, soft one - tracing his scars. Bile churns in his stomach. How dare she. Nobody has touched those scars but Nora…and Rachel. He’s kept the other women he’s fucked away from them, so they’d known better than to ask.

Bass' eyes travel down to where Charlie is fingering the roughest angles of her uncle’s battered flesh. “Never seen those before, huh?” Bass asks quietly.

“Did you get these in the early days of the Blackout? Is that why…?” Charlie’s lips still as her brain races. Maybe something unspeakable happened to Miles, and that’s why he initiated the barbaric Monroe Militia.

Miles’ back heaves with a deep breath. The fire crackles as if in warning, and Charlie prepares herself for what is sure to be Miles’ wrathful rebuff.

Bass reaches under Miles with a bandage and relocates to his front to tie it fast at his chest. Light eyes lock with dark just for a moment, before Bass concentrates anew at the knot he’s tying. His split second look suggests, _Don’t, Miles. It’s natural to be curious._ Hot ire seethes in Miles, because the lucky son of a bitch doesn’t have visible scars from his worst pain. Charlie can’t see, for instance, the almost greenish pallor that crept into Bass’s cheeks when he identified the pieces left of his parents and sisters on their morgue slabs; she can’t see Bass carelessly dangling a gun between his fingers by the coffin-sized mounds of fresh dirt. But she can smoke out Miles’ worst memories with a glance at his skin.

Miles shuts his eyes briefly, and Bass pats him on the shoulder to let him know the bandage is done.

“Miles?” Charlie tries again, still behind him. She’s let her hand fall from the puckered flesh. Of course, he’s not speaking. Silly even to ask. She’s angry now – feels entitled to extract at least some reaction from him. “Right. Why would you tell me anything that helps me know you better? Hell, if you give me a scrap, I might start to forgive you for everything, and then maybe you’d have to stop hating yourself so much! Where’s the fun in that!” she spits.

Miles grabs her wrist as she tries to bolt away.

“Let go of me, Miles. Everyone lies to me. You most of all. I’m sick to death of it!”

Bass is squatting by the fire, feeling intrusive but also intrigued by their firecracker dynamic, and Charlie’s surprisingly incisive reading of Miles.

She shakes off her uncle and stands with her back to him.

“It looks that bad, huh?” comes the cracked voice after an open-ended pause.

Charlie actually starts at the sound of Miles’ voice and gazes back over her shoulder.

“It’s just, no one’s ever really been honest with me before about how bad it looks. At first, they were probably scared I’d be upset, and then later…they were probably just scared of me. Huh. I actually thought I was fooling people all these years.”

Charlie slowly comes back to the fire and sits next to Bass, cradling her knees. She’s almost afraid to speak and break this spell. The firelight flickers off the crags in her uncle’s war-worn face. She can see now that his chest hair is graying slightly. His ribs disturb his flesh like he hasn’t eaten a satisfying meal in years.

“So…was it before or after you guys started the Militia?”

“Not after the Blackout, Charlie. Afghanistan. Our third tour.” Miles is very hoarse. He glances briefly at Bass, but Bass is transfixed by fire - man's most primitive companion. This thing Miles is pondering telling Charlie, it was probably as hard on Bass as on him. He feels a rush of tenderness for his old best friend.

Charlie glances at Bass. She never thinks about them as Marines before the Blackout. It’s hard for her to imagine a trauma that didn’t involve the apocalypse that has governed their lives for 16 years. In her mind, pre-Blackout life was all ice cream and cartoons, but for some people – clearly for Miles and probably for Bass – it was hell. Maybe the Blackout even gave people like them a second lease on life.

“What happened to you?” 

“I was taken prisoner by Taliban. Held for four months. That stupid prick over there saved me.” Miles isn’t sure why he added that part. Maybe because he’s still fucking grateful after all these years.

Bass looks up at Miles, but Miles is looking at his hands. For the first time since they’ve been on this strange joint-mission, Bass feels genuinely restored to his best friend.

“They whipped you?”

Miles finds he can’t bear the specificity of her question. It was the least of what they did – what they took from him. So he just nods. He feels silly – hell, everyone’s been through extraordinary shit at this point. Look at Rachel. Eight years of torture.

“Must have been lonely,” Charlie whispers, barely audible over the crackle.

“What?” Miles’ voice shatters into little pieces. 

“Being trapped in a foreign country by people who didn’t speak your language…who wanted nothing but to hurt you. Despite everything, I’ve spent my life surrounded by people who love me, who want the best for me.”

Bass swallows, and Charlie notices his Adam’s apple moving out of the corner of her eye. Bass is trying not to let the gravity of her words sink into the hidden recesses of his own heartache. How alone he’s felt since Miles left the Militia. How everyone around him might as well have been the fucking Taliban for all they cared about him.

“I guess I get it,” Charlie nods. “Why you two can’t kill each other. Why mom can’t let go of you even given what you’ve done. You all have your little spider web of war stories. No one quite knows what the other has suffered, but at least you have a shorthand.” Charlie kicks out her legs to warm her boots. “Seems like in war it’s almost better when the people you love die, because if they live, they’re just ghosts of themselves. They do awful things, because they can’t feel anymore.”

“Nah, Charlie. You’re wrong about the last bit. We feel. But you definitely can’t take it in all at once, or you’d go crazy.” Again Miles’ eyes shift toward Bass, like maybe he’s just figured out the problem with his old friend. It’s a passing fancy though; Bass is still lost in the flames. 

The fire is starting to scorch Bass’ corneas; he wills himself to blink. “Charlie,” Bass blurts at last, like he’s just learned her name. “I never saw it till now, but…you’re Ben.” He drags his eyes away from the tiny blue center of the fire to look at Miles half in apology, half in need of affirmation. Ben could analyze the most complex thing and reduce it to perfect clarity. His gift. Nothing is simple to Bass and Miles. They are always stumbling through the morass.

Charlie also looks eagerly at Miles for confirmation. She still has that fetching ability to swing from sage to adolescent in a moment.

Well shit - they’re all sharing anyway: “Yeah, you are, Charlie. S’why I agreed to come with you in the first place.”

Charlie shoots Miles that lopsided grin, while Bass scratches his neck in that familiar way, and hell if Miles doesn't feel utterly content for once.


End file.
